Apple CEO Tim Cook refused a meeting with Tesla's Elon Musk to deliberate on the possibility of the Cupertino-based tech giant acquiring Tesla, according to a recent tweet by the eccentric entrepreneur.
While responding to a tweet by Brett Winton, director of research at ARK Invest about Apple's ambitions of making it big in the self-driving car technology sector via Project Titan, Musk laid bare what could have been a gamechanger.
Musk tweeted, "During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value). He refused to take the meeting."
These "darkest days" occurred during 2017 and 2018 when Tesla was stuck in "production hell" and scrambled to scale up the production of its Model 3 Sedan because of the issues related to automated production systems at its battery factory in Nevada.
Musk added monocell design- the technology Apple plans to use "is electrochemically impossible as maximum voltage is ~ 100X too low. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?"
Meanwhile, Tesla has become the most valued company by market capitalization to make its S&P 500 debut. Its current market capitalization exceeds $600 billion after four consecutive profitable quarters.
Also read: Apple aims car production by 2024; eyes 'next level' battery technology
Also read: Tesla most valuable company ever to make S&P 500 debut